The Meaning of Scotland
Monday, June 18th, 2007Great question in my senmongakko (private college) class today: “Teacher, I still don’t understand what Scotland means”
I chose to take that as a geographical and political question rather than a philosophical one (Does anyone really, deep down, understand what Scotland means??).
Not sure I managed to answer the question however you take it, seeing as the student had never heard of my closest examples (The Vatican, Monaco) and pre-handover Okinawa (when it was 100% occupied by the Americans until 1972 rather than 45% occupied it is now) isn’t the best of comparisons. Any metaphors spring to mind?
The issue this brings up is a common lack of Japanese knowledge about the outside world. This is more understandable than the Spanish lack of knowledge about the outside world, seeing as there are 115 million Japanese working for companies of world impact living on an isolated island. It’s also not as bad as the Chinese students I had ten years ago who of all the famous people I could think of to explain job vocabulary had only heard of Bill Clinton, and mainly for his bad taste in women… But the problem does remain, and this particular class will be studying abroad next year and are not going to widen their circle of friends when they meet the statement “I am from Argentina” with a blank stare (about 30% of the class had no idea such a country existed). I’ve mentioned the theoretical friend-losing encounter and we’ve done stuff with maps. Have also done an unintentional Basil Fawlty impression when I found out how little they knew.
Looking for other ideas to try out the next few weeks like getting them to plan a trip round the world (We are going to visit…) and using a worksheet I’ve made up with famous products they have to guess the origin of (Louis Vuitton is French etc- should be a hit!) and will let you know how they go.